I've not really tried to understand the referral program so far. To busy to learn if it is worth the time for my few hubs at this point. But I do need to try to learn exactly how this works. Congrats to you though,Mark!

Most of these come from my own hubs. I add a referral tracker and link to other people's hubs. You guys must have noticed that your Pages/Visit stats are pretty low here? Because there are so many other pages similar to yours. So - I often actively link to other people's stuff and add a tracker. That way I get the most of my search engine visits. I even write the occasional article specifically to link to other hubpages:

First, the ad impressions you get for a limited time are from the HP's share of impressions. Second, if a visitor signs up for HubPages under your referrel tracker, you keep on getting 10% of the ad impressions on the hubs he/she writes, again from the HP's share.

1. 90% of my traffic is search engines.2. My pages /viewed stats are very low compared to other sites I write at. 3. Probably - people are clicking off to another hub, because they see the site as all the same.4. I take advantage of that by actively providing them with a link to do so using my tracker.5. I get 10% of any impressions after they have done this and if they sign up and write some hubs - I get ongoing shares.

Make sense?

I do agree with Relache - and I do not actively encourage them to sign up - except through my profile page.

Lets say I have a tracker link to one of your hubs in one of my blog posts, and today ten people click on it. One of those will see my ad.

Tomorrow 20 people click through, 2 will see that ad.

One day in the middle of next month I have a lot of traffic to my blog post and 100 people click through on the link, I'll have 10 of those ad impressions.

There is no time limit on traffic referrals.

What it means in the bit you've pulled from the FAQ is to do with cookies and whether a person becomes a member. It's probably not explained as well as it should be. But essentially a tracker does two things, rewards people sending traffic and credits people for a sign up referral.

Here's the two things we do know: 1) The cookie lasts for 30 days, and 2) The initial 120 minutes is guaranteed.

It's difficult to explain, and what HubPages has created is complicated. Though extremely powerful and beneficial to its members. Each tracker does two jobs at the same time.

The 120 minute factor works two ways too. And applies to each visitor individually. So yes, I hear what you're saying. But if I send a visitor to your hub right now, it's 120 minutes on the clock and counting. I send one a minute later, it's 120 minutes on the clock and counting. A persons duration at the site is far more likely to be measured in minutes rather than hours.

And I think the example they've given in the FAQ is probably irrelevant:

"We set this limit because there may be multiple Hubbers referring people to a particular Hub."

It's on an individual basis, so it doesn't matter how many hubbers are referring people to a particular hub, it will only matter if two hubbers refer the same person.

The important thing, for me anyway, is that all traffic that I send has a 1 in 10 chance of seeing my ads on the hub I've sent them to. The 120 minutes is most significant for visitors who later sign up. Because most visitors won't stick around for 120 minutes just to read hubs.

Of those referrals who are a) not spam-rated and b) actually Hub-producing, I seem to have picked up a bunch of real estate people, a couple of computer techies and one (who is my true cash cow) who writes Hubs for kids.

Apart from the condom writer - I have some very weird Amazon sales. Most of my unexplained earnings (which I put down to referrals) come from adsense though. Either way - it has been a worthwhile exercise.

I was wondering if you ever do anything to encourage your sign-ups in keeping on hubbing and give them personal tips to make more money. Like I fanned my 1 signup, but I guess when you have over 400 that is not really a great idea...

I agree with that. Often, I think people sign up simply because they think they have to, in order to comment. Or they join to take part in the forums.

I tried contacting some of my referrals once and got no response. If I see them writing a Hub or two, I'll make a point of leaving comments and thumbing up if they're good, but I don't fan them unless I'm interested.

Yes, it does. I keep notes on what I've set up as bit.ly URLs and which URL they're pointing to and indeed seeing that the only traffic to those trackers have come via bit.ly via twitter then it does recognize the tracker.

hey dark, yeah, i have been using it over Tweetdeck for a while, is why I axed. cool. makes things easier.

someone also mentioned the possibility of a HP app for iPhone and Android, which I can totally see happening. If HP goes the mobile publishing route, it can be a game changer. Being able to use the linkage for specific published hubs over mobile.

It took me a bit to figure out I should use my referral trackers. Over the last 10 days I picked up two sign-ups. One guy published 7 hubs and I think I got some clicks. As you said, it is hard to tell with everything rolled up together.

You could probably make the internal referral process easier by putting your tracker in to a targetted RSS feed and placing it at the end of each hub.

Might have to look in to this soon, but with three websites of my own under construction, a new advertising strategy being put together, a marriage,moving in to a new house, in a new country, and suffering from a mild case of writers block, I have quite a lot on my plate!

And thanks for posting the links (thanks for asking Sam). I was reading through all the posts here trying to figure out what I should plug into the search box to try and find some hubs or FAQs. Haven't even attempted to touch referrals yet. There's so much to learn! (But, I'm having fun doing it. - I'm definitely not as prolific as a lot of you... I was thrilled 2 weeks ago to top 1000 page views. ) Congrats again!

I just read darkside's hubs on the referrals. Can someone clarify for me (sorry to hijack here... its sort of on topic. )... So, I can create a tracker, then insert it into the url for any page on hubpages... whether it be the sign up page, or my own article, or someone else's... post that link here on HP or elsewhere, and I will benefit when someone uses that link?

Is that the basics? At times, I need someone to explain this to me like I'm 5. (Actually, my 5yr old might do better! )

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